Life with the Privileged
by SlowMotionAccident
Summary: Slightly like Gossip Girl. Rated M cause I'm never sure but probably more of a T  They were the best of friends until it happened. Now when they need her again will she come back? Can a friendship broken ever really be repaired?
1. Characters

**Disclaimer: I made up everything in this story. If you recognise anything in it, it was unintentional.**

Vienna Ava Elizabeth Akehurst: Shoulder-length, straight blonde hair and about 5'8 with brown eyes. She's very skinny and more or less the schools 'Queen Bee'.

Parents are called Lillian Akehurst (maiden name Muller, daughter of wealthy shipping tycoon) and Caleb Akehurst, media mogul.

Jonathan Michael Isaac Ashworth: Short blonde hair and blue eyes.

The only son of Lydia (maiden name DuPont, the famous socialite and heiress) and Marcus Ashworth, one part of 'Colton and Ashworth' law firm.

Died tragically the summer before he, and the others, were meant to join Holton Preparatory Academy at the age of 11.

Cole Zachary Sebastian Colton: Thick, messy dark brown hair with hazel, nearly green eyes and is 6'2. He's also on the schools swim team.

His mother's name is Jocelyn (maiden name Deston, of the famous publishing company) and his father's Nicholas, the other part of the towering legal firm 'Colton and Ashworth'.

Emma Ophelia Harris: Long, wavy auburn hair and dark blue eyes. She's around 5'4 and slim but curvy.

Her mother is called Alicia Harris. Her father left before she was born. Her mother works for Vienna's family as a sort of house keeper, just as her mother worked for Lillian's family. The two grew close as kids and stayed so as adults for a long time. This is why Vienna and Emma were so close and in turn Cole and Jonathan.

She's at Holton on a scholarship.

**A/N: Just so you have an idea going in of who they are :) I'll be uploading links on my profile so you can better visualize how they would look.**


	2. And so it Begins

**Disclaimer: I made up everything in this story. If you recognise anything in it, it was unintentional.**

* * *

><p><em><span>Vienna<span>_

The penthouse apartment was full. Bursting really. The already stifling temperature caused by the heat wave that struck New York to see us out of the last week of summer was multiplied by a thousand from all the bodies piled in. Even in my tank and shorts it was sweltering.

I can't remember whose place this is. The alcohol I'd downed earlier had seriously taken hold and my recollection of much right now was limited. Cole had disappeared awhile ago, that I knew, and he certainly wasn't close enough for me to see him through the thick bong haze that saturated the air.

Yet even now, when I've misplaced my oldest and best friend and would be unable to tell anyone where my shoes are, my lifelong training is still in place.

There's Addison Sinclair snorting coke with Alexander Middleton and Olivia Preston.

And leading the wasted throng of over-privileged upper eastsider's is her twin brother Carson, whose so gone he hasn't even noticed Brianna Oakley is literally dry humping him.

And congregated in the middle of it all is a monumental game of strip poker including Brayden Montgomery, Savannah Carlton, Clarissa Morton, Tristan Lancaster and last but not least our respectable Senator Harding's son Robert who just so happened to also be the main supplier of the drugs on choice tonight.

Whether I like it or not I know every dirty little secret of everyone here. My parent's position in the social scene placed me in my position in this school and as such I suffer the consequences of that, regardless of how I feel, as that's what I'm expected to do.

I know each and every one of the people swarming me right now, vying for my attention, just a second of it, wanting grasp hold of me and bask in the ever shining spotlight I have forced upon me.

I giggled at my own drug induced 'philosophising'. They all laughed too, for no reason except they didn't want to admit they didn't know what amused me.

I saw him then, Landon Goldstein, 6'3 with perfect blonde hair and the looks of an Abercrombie model. I'd had an eye on him for a while. He smiled when he saw me looking back and motioned for me to follow him before turning and walking up the stairs, heading for the bedrooms.

How I wish I hadn't drunkenly stumbled after him.

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><p><em><span>Emma<span>_

I was dreaming, this fact registered vaguely as I watched the scene unfolding in front of me.

Four children were playing hide and seek. There was a brunette, two blondes and another with a dark auburn shade. As time went by they each took turns, laughing and smiling as they did, with the close nature of their relationship evident.

Then it was the blonde boys' turn but something changed. They all hid but instead of looking the boy turned and left. The other boy and blonde girl turned on the auburn haired girl. They blamed her and blamed her, their voices becoming more and more shrill until…

I woke up, knocking my alarm into submission. Just as I do every September at the start of a new term, with some old childhood memory haunting me and manipulating itself until I awake both longing and bitter; for those I knew and at who they'd become.

And just like every other year I'd shake that off, ready myself and start the trek to Holton Preparatory Academy in the Upper East Side, otherwise known as the school of the privileged, where they prepare for their future prospects. And mate…mainly mate, cause when you're that rich that is really the only way to describe it.

I sat in the quad, basking in the early morning sun. I was largely ignored, as I had been for some time now. _They'd_ made sure of that, and when I wasn't the remarks no longer fazed me. After five years of the same old insults, laughing at and mocking my hair, clothes, shoes etcetera, etcetera, I'd become indifferent. It was nothing that doesn't eventually stop bothering a person. In the beginning it had been worse, much worse, when _they'd_ opened a free for all on me. Well the social vultures pounced at once. I was on scholarship, I didn't belong…and they'd made sure I'd known it.

'What are you doing?' the voice came from my left and I looked to see Sophie Lewis slip on to the bench beside me. Sophie was another scholarship student. Her inconspicuous brown hair, brown eyes and five foot frame allowed her to fade into the school background, just as she liked it. It's also what allowed her to avoid the pay grade torment I went through.

'Playing "What nose did you have last year?"' I drawled, my eyes quickly scanning the court-yard around us.

'Oh fun, fun, fun.' I turned to my right and smiled. Eoghan McLaughlin was six feet of skinny, slightly muscled, blonde haired, ferociously lovable gay male. With thick framed glasses covering grey eyes.

He's also on a scholarship; it's how we all know each other. Luckily we also turned out to be so compatible we seamlessly transitioned into close friends or our lives in the Designer Dungeon (as Eoghan likes to call it) would have been literal hell.

'So how many so far?' He smirked at me. We did this every year since we were thirteen when we realised quite a few of our schoolmates were coming back ever so slightly less recognizable.

'Six nose jobs, at least three different liposuctions and I'm more than a little certain Charlotte Mason got a boob job cause she was a B-cup _at most_ before summer and there's no way they physically grew that fast.' No joke, I'm pretty sure they're each the size of my head.

'Jesus! Em they look like they could be the size of your head!' Sophie breathed out, head tilted in disturbed amazement. I stand victorious.

And so we continued our day in much the same fashion, filling it with as much sarcasm as we could in an attempt to stay sane. We'd all have left by now if this wasn't the best school in the state, possibly the whole East coast.

By lunch I was zoning out, leaving Eoghan and Sophie to their escalating argument on whether or not Taylor Lautners' abs were real. Eoghan was horrified Sophie would suggest such blasphemy and was vehemently defending those, and I quote, 'works of pure brilliance sent from heaven above to be ogled by us mere mortals'. Yeah. I was still paying enough attention to intervene should it come to blows. Again. Oh yes, they'd actually had this argument before. Many times in fact. Last time I'd been to slow, Sophie had moved on to wondering whether or not Pattinsons' hair was a wig and, well, it was just more than poor Eoghan could handle.

I looked around the now full quad. I'm fairly positive there can't be another school containing quite so much designer school equipment. Even the nerds here are decked out in it. Who knew Gucci made protractors? Not to mention they're better looking than your average nerd. It's kind of unsettling in the beginning.

But there are nerds in this school, just like every other school across the country, as well as jocks and theatre geeks all the way to burnouts and honour students. I suppose one of the only marking differences is the three of us and every other triplet set in each grade. We're an entirely separate group, the lowest of the low, the scholarship students. We make that kid who threw up on Tamara Hareven freshmen year look like a good idea to befriend.

And as with all schools there is a clique, _the_ clique, which only the most attractive can join. The group that get impressive grades while still on a multitude of teams. Who dictate who, what and where is cool and decide everything else that is not. That group who the adults respect and trust and hold up as shining examples to others but who really act out the most. Except in our school you need a little bit more to enter into the fold. Only the offspring of the richest and most powerful families can become part of that group in our school. And considering we're already a private school for the elite that's saying something.

They sat at a table in the very centre of the walled yard as usual. Audrey Harper, her dad's an oil tycoon, was flirting with Wyatt Alston whose family owns most of Manhattan. Beside them Bianca Eaton, of the international fashion house, was displaying her new pumps to a crowd of reverent admirers that included Camille Harding, the Senators daughter, whose brother Robert was deep in discussion with her boyfriend Nathaniel Kingston, son of the prominent art collector, and Carter Aubrey. All I know about him is his family is filthy rich.

I could go on but only three more really matter. The rest are simply hangers on, wannabes, who will be discarded once boring or when they inevitably perform some ridiculous social faux pas. Like wear last season's socks.

Tamara Hareven, youngest daughter of the Hareven Cosmetic Empire, sat atop the table with one arm linked with her '_BFF_', nattering away as they held court over their minions.

There was once a time that BFF would have been sitting beside me, along with the boy on her other side.

They are Vienna Akehurst and Cole Colton. Both are probably the most popular people in this social bubble. Both brilliant and perfect in every way you could be. Vienna's parents Lillian and Caleb both came from generations of wealth; the former part of a shipping empire while the latter is _the_ media mogul. She herself lives up to that level of breeding with her groomed shoulder length spun gold hair, perfectly layered to compliment her symmetrical model looks and tiny matching body. All that's left is to throw in her chocolate brown eyes and wrap it up in her 5'8 package. Her makeup, her clothes, everything about her is always perfect. And until five years ago I'd have said her personality matched how she looked. But not anymore.

Cole was most girls' definition of chiselled perfection. With his thick, messy brown hair and intense hazel, nearly green eyes, placed inside a perfectly proportioned and chiselled face you can see why. Add in the fact he's on the swim team and its no mystery how he got his, ahem, reputation. But I bet none of them know how he got that tiny scar above his right eyebrow. It's from running through the glass door of his Hamptons house when he was eight. I know though, after all I was the one shouting at him that the door wasn't open. His mother, Jocelyn, is part of the powerful Deston Publishing House and his father, Nicholas, is the other half of reigning law firm 'Colton and Ashworth'.

We were once the best of friends, despite the class difference between me and them. My grandmother had worked for Lillian's parents and her and my mother developed a friendship that has lasted well into the present day, when my mum works for Lillian's family. That bond allowed me to grow close to Vienna. Then Cole and the last of our quartet Jonathan. Jonathan Ashworth.

The four of us were inseparable for years. Until that summer, just before we started middle school at Holton. Jonathan died and...well Vienna and Cole blamed me. I don't know why. I've never found out. But those bonds between us snapped and they pushed me overboard, to the sharks of our school. Even at eleven they were influential here. Thus the free for all on the scholarship brat began.

Years later I still know them. Not in the sense we talk but in the sense I can still read them. Like I can tell neither is really listening to their loyal lackeys. Cole is glaring off at some other congregated group, his jaw clenched like it always is when he's angry. Vienna's smile is forced, her shoulders hunched in and she's flinching in her own way (just a jerk of her left hand as she always has done) anytime anyone comes to close, like the idea of touching them terrifies her.

But no one else has noticed that, every detail so minute that no one else knows them well enough to see it.

Suddenly brown eyes flash to my own blue ones. We've spent years avoiding this, avoiding eye contact, each other, whatever you want to pinpoint it as. There's surprise in her stare, quickly replacing what had been there before and I know what she sees in mine; anger and hurt fading slowly into indifference. Yet even though I wish there wasn't, there's also worry and concern, because herself and Cole aren't acting as they normally do and when there's a flash of recognition in her eyes I know she's seen it.

At that moment the bell rings breaking that gaze and drowning out Eoghan's impassioned cries of 'You take that back you lying wench!' and Sophie's hysterical laughter. It dulls the thuds of bags and feet as we all make our way back inside to finish the tedium of our school day. I even use it to pretend it smothers whatever just happened between me and one of the people I used to care about so very much.

**A/N: So there's chapter one. I'm still working on my writing so it's probably not great but ah well :)**


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